It dominated my thoughts. It seemed like a fraying in the fabric of our still enviable Canadian society by the perceived rise in extremist views among my countrymen and women.
Stemming from what I recognize now as both my childish reluctance and subsequent lack of ability to find common ground with many of them on so called ‘important’ issues – a sense of frustration and disillusionment had pitted itself deep in my soul. It just seemed all too un-Canadian to me.
Oh, and I’m no major flag waver either, that’s for sure. I’m not inclined to think on a nationalist scale about much. I’ve always thought of being Canadian as a birth lottery that I won. I don’t deserve or warrant anything special or above the person who migrated here last month. But I am Canadian either way; I needed a better way to define what that means to myself. I needed to rekindle that pride inside me for being part of a nation built by the world.
I also needed to find some peace. I know I’m not the only one, this is for sure. It turns out that the constant bickering and circular arguing with total strangers that I’d engaged in for the better part of my social media experience – actually doesn’t have the profound impact on society I fantasized about it having.
I’m quite sure I convinced a total of nobody to see things my way. In fact – gulp – I have a sneaking suspicion that I cured in the ballpark of zero folks of their alt-rightism. How can this be? I mean, I had such clever and cutting retorts to hardline conservatives in all those super productive comment sections I indulged in, dammit!
I must have converted someone, right? Wrong. I totally didn’t.
What do you get when you essentially call someone stupid? You get pretzels. Nothing. It becomes the end of any chance of reasonable dialogue and creates chats that look more like the script of those raging backstage wrestler interviews on WWE. I knew I couldn’t keep on like that. It was just a pointless vexation I didn’t need.
Until one particular well-lit morning in my psyche, I felt an epiphany. Buzzing after an extra scoop of west coast coffee in my French press, it had finally hit me.
Shit, I could actually try talking to people.
I looked closer and really examined my situation, the divide between myself and the dude from high school that killed it in shop class but flunked grade 10 law – might not be the chasm it seemed to be. Let’s use a very basic study as an example. A 2021 survey from the Environics Institute for Survey Research says that almost 73% of Canadians think our democracy is still working, so there’s that. That number shows more of a consensus than a divide, at least I think so anyway. Granted that’s over two years ago now and we might be in a slightly different place. A more recent study from the PEW Research centre suggests that now only 57% of Canadians feel democracy is working, while a rising 43% think not.
Okay that scared me a bit, I am not going lie. We’re slipping in one of our basic agreements – that notion that our democracy is still serving us. Something or someone needs to bridge the gap.
Obviously the country was looking to yours truly to change his rhetoric in high places like the all-important comment section of the Toronto SUN , for example. Well guess what? Can do.
So here it is, my new way. Instead of waking myself up at 4:39 AM some mornings to both defend myself from and attack people I don’t even know, I’m going to put down the dung I’ve been flinging and talk to the person next to me. (Okay, not actually next to me, but on the inter-webs). I’m going turn a new maple leaf and earnestly attempt to listen to my political opposite. I’m going to start asking questions that might inspire or provoke different thinking.
The days of belittling others for what might be differing opinions that aren’t really that far off are done for me.
It’s time to start being a Canadian again: the way I define it.
